Tag: Baucus

Maine’s Olympia Snowe explained her vote for health care reform by saying “when history calls, history calls.” It called, she answered, and now the Senate Finance Committee’s Baucus bill, which would force Americans to buy health insurance without offering a public option, is off to get married to the more progressive Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill.

Democrats have lousy timing, according to the AP: “Under the Democratic bills, federal tax credits to help make health insurance affordable for millions of low- and middle-income households won’t start flowing until 2013—after the next presidential election. But Medicare cuts and a sizable chunk of the tax increases to pay for the overhaul kick in immediately.”

All of the health bills on offer, even the supposedly “liberal” House bill, are already centrist compromises built on a private health insurance market. Above, Olympia Snowe, who may turn out to be the single Senate Republican voting for reform.

Russia might be pleased with President Obama’s decision to nix Bush’s missile shield plans, but how about Eastern Europe? Meanwhile, Sen. Max Baucus’ health care reform plan foundered, and Obama made a play to get through to the powers on Wall Street. All this—plus the Glenn Becking of American political discourse—is part of this week’s discussion on “Left, Right & Center.”

Sen. Max Baucus bent over backward to please Republicans with his insurance-friendly vision of health care reform, which forces everyone to buy private insurance and has no public option, but the very Republicans he negotiated with now won’t have anything to do with the bill.

The lawmakers charged with health care reform, hailing mostly from small states and rural areas, together represent only 13 million people, meaning those speaking for just 4 percent of America are maneuvering to impose their health care will on the other 96 percent of us.

Looks like the insurance companies are getting what they’ve paid for in the U.S. Congress. The Senate Finance Committee is closer to a deal with Republicans, which means no public health care option. The Blue Dogs, meanwhile, are still nipping at the heels of House Democrats.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee wants to run ads against Democrats, including John Kerry and Dianne Feinstein, who are working against a public health care option. They’re already running this ad against Sen. Max Baucus in his home state of Montana.

The president has shied away from handing Congress his own plans on “stone tablets,” but if he doesn’t intervene in the health care debate, and soon, lawmakers are going to send him an unworkable monstrosity of a bill.

By one estimate, Sen. Max Baucus gets about $1,500 a day from the health industry. Who put this man in charge of health care reform? The senator’s latest innovation in compromise is to slash proposed insurance subsidies in a bid to get Republicans on board. And forget about a government-run insurance program.

Single-payer advocates have been protesting in Senate Finance Committee hearings, chaired by Democratic Montana Sen. Max Baucus. Last week, at a committee hearing with 15 industry speakers, not one represented the single-payer perspective.